For Against All Reason
by Moon Destiny
Summary: Sophie doesn't know whether to stay or go. Howl/Sophie.


**Disclaimer:** HMC is owned by Hayao Miyazaki and Diana Wynne Jones; nothing is mine or done for profit.

**Notes: **Written for the theme 'star-struck' over at thecirclet on livejournal.

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Sophie, even in her old age, was wholly charmed by the Wizard Howl. She was glad of the curse put upon her by the Witch of the Waste, as it allowed her to be close to Howl, without fear of her heart being in danger.

It was a close call. One such as Sophie would've been star-struck by someone of Howl's caliber, but, as well, someone of Howl's caliber wouldn't give someone such as Sophie the time of day. All in all, if Sophie was her young self, she surely wouldn't have survived meeting Howl without her heart shattering into a thousand shards inside her ribcage.

Sophie didn't resent the facts of life thrust upon her. She was a plain, and a mild-mannered girl. That was just the way she was born, and she liked herself; there was a certain level of comfort she felt there. She wasn't as flamboyant or confident as Howl. People like that just invited trouble with them, and Sophie quite liked a quite life, except…

She couldn't quite not think of Howl, or where he was, or what he was doing, or even how this rumor of him eating young girls' hearts ever started because she didn't believe that wasn't anything but gossip started by old women intending to keep young girls away from Howl. The image of Howl imprinted itself in her mind's eye, and wouldn't dispel no matter how hard Sophie tried to make him disappear from her thoughts. But she couldn't give herself permission to dwell on the feelings instigated by the wizard, for surely she wouldn't ever be a young woman again, and what was the point, really, in trying to catch a star when you were only a small child with chubby arms? It was quite laughable.

The first time she met Howl, she was intrigued but no more than that; then with every waking of the sun, and rising of the moon, the days and weeks and months turned and fled until they were no more than mere wisps in the ashes of the ground, and dust of heavens. Her family was no longer on Sophie's mind quite as often as they used to be. They became distant remnants of Sophie's past; the one she had as a young girl, and the one she had to run away from upon turning wrinkled and grey.

The life she had in the moving castle with Howl, Calcifer, and Markl eclipsed the one beyond the distant moors of her past. Once upon a time, Sophie's life was dull, and plain. Then she encountered a moving castle, and it was as though the dark blanket of the universe suddenly exploded with a sheet of supernovas.

It was getting harder and harder to remember why she had once loved her old life when it was nothing compared to what she was living now. It almost made her forget the inconvenient curse forced upon her unsuspectingly- almost. But then she'd glance into her reflection from the water, or mirror, and her life before then would flash through the darkness in her mind, and instill the blinding light of her current place- she was just an old cleaning lady. What was the importance of an old cleaning lady when compared with a young, dashing, royally-called upon wizard? Someone famous among the magically endowed judged against a meager, simple human girl?

It was, in Sophie's sadly low-esteemed view, absurdly ridiculous for her to have any sort of non-platonic feelings for the Wizard Pendragon, and whatever else he was known as. A rooster did not go around with a peacock, and Miss Sophie Hatter certainly wouldn't be known as one who went around with the man who had a reputation for eating the hearts of all females he courted.

In _theory_, that was what she told herself. But, as time and history proved throughout, logic hardly ever had any place when concerned with love or matters that prickled the heart. It was easy to forbid the heart from palpitating at the thought of the vain wizard, however, in actuality, the heart didn't seem to be listening one bit.

Sophie was on the verge of bursting in tears, and running away as far as possible from her newly-settled life, but it seemed no matter how much her head prompted and urged her feet to move, it proved to be quite difficult to wander away from the castle and never take a look back. It seemed that no matter how much her brain screamed for her to get out, that this-in every way- was going to get ghastly before she could ever dream of a perfect life in the moving castle, her feet stayed firmly planted within the perimeter of the dingy castle.

If you were suddenly whirled into a burning star, would you get away, fighting your heart all the way to not envelope yourself in its shine for one last time?

This must've been love.


End file.
